In a conventional tire appearance inspection, a tire is placed on its side on a rotating table, and as the tire is rotated, an image of the upward tire side is captured along the circumferential direction of the tire. By doing so, an inspection image for one round of the tire side is obtained, and this inspection image is subjected to an image processing. Thus, an inspection is performed to detect molding defects, such as bumpy or recessed flaws, on the tire side (see Patent Document 1).
However, the tire side to be inspected has adhesions of rubber burrs which are rubber extremities having spilled into air bleeder holes provided in a mold for molding the tire or having spilled into gaps between the molds, in addition to the molded objects to be primarily molded. As a result, the inspection image obtained shows rubber burrs captured therein. And the rubber burrs captured in the inspection image are detected as defects because they cannot be distinguished from molding defects in an appearance inspection by image processing. Hence, parts detected as defects must be reinspected visually by a worker to determine whether they are molding defects or rubber burrs. This requires use of trouble and time for inspection, thus obstructing the improvement of efficiency in inspection.